11 Culture Amp competitors to boost performance & engagement

Culture Amp began as a straightforward employee survey platform in 2009, but it has since grown into an industry leader in the performance management space, uniting tools for employee development, engagement, and performance management in one place. In a time when professionals want more initiatives that prioritize topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), wellbeing, and development, Culture Amp gives managers and leaders the features they need to take more effective and meaningful action.

However, despite its prominence in the market, Culture Amp isn’t ideal for organizations that want to optimize the relationship between performance management, goal management, and engagement. While Culture Amp offers good, industry best-practice engagement features, a lot of customers realize that it has some shortcomings with the performance and goal tools. For example, competency frameworks in Culture Amp lack customization, meaning if you want customized skills for every level in every department to ensure fair performance reviews, you might find that Culture Amp can’t support you with that.

If you’re trying to roll out OKR processes at your organization, there are better tools that allow for more in-depth, aligned goal management. For example, Culture Amp doesn’t allow you to set sub-goals within goals, and it doesn’t show how individual goals contribute to company OKRs. The site is also difficult for new users to navigate, and there’s no way to test it with a trial account. In addition, although it has enterprise-level appeal, Culture Amp lacks the holistic design and capabilities that would make it accessible to teams that are new to engagement software.

‍All in all, there are more effective and comprehensive solutions available, which is what we’ll explore in this breakdown of the top eleven Culture Amp alternatives. We compare each option based on the best use case, features, pros and cons, and pricing to help you make a more informed decision.*

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*The information below is based on our research on Culture Amp competitors in April 2023. All user feedback referenced in the text has been researched and sourced from independent software review platforms such as G2 and Capterra in April 2023.

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Companies

Pricing

Language options

Customer rating

Leapsome

Pricing starts at US$8/month per user. Free trial available.

13

4.8

Betterworks

Betterworks (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

1

4.3

CultureMonkey

Culturemoneky (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

6

4.8

Engagedly

Engagedly (Cultureamp)

Starting price for an annual agreement is US$5,000.

8

4.4

Glint (now Microsoft Viva Goals)

Glint (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

43

4.5

Limeade Listening (formerly TINYpulse)

Limeade (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

1

4.4

Officevibe (by Workleap)

Officevibe (Cultureamp)

Free plan available. Paid plans between US$3.50-5.

4

4.3

Qualtrics Employee Experience

Qualtrics (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

8

4.3

Quantum Workplace

Quantum (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available

23

4.5

SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow (Cultureamp)

Free plan available. Advanced plan has custom pricing

58

4.4

Workday (Peakon)

Workday (Cultureamp)

Pricing not readily available.

42

4.6

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Leapsome — goal-setting

Leapsome pricing starts at US$8 per user per month, depending on the number of employees you have and the combination of modules you want. You can also try it for free for 14 days.

13

4.8

Key criteria to look for in an employee engagement platform

According to Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report, only 21% of professionals are engaged at work. Employee engagement software can help stagnant satisfaction rates trend up again, but only if it includes the combination of features and functionality that your business needs to take action on insights. Based on our research, essential capabilities include:

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Performance review tools

Research shows engaged teams see an 18% increase in productivity and a 23% increase in profitability. That’s why it’s essential to invest in a platform that combines surveys and performance reviews. Doing so makes it easier to spot correlations between assessment scores and engagement data so you can take more relevant, decisive action.

Customizable learning paths and competency frameworks

When engagement surveys, pulse surveys, and anonymous feedback point to an employee desire for more training, consider implementing built-in development tools. The best engagement platforms have customizable course creation features. Additionally, if your software has performance review features, it should allow you to set up competency frameworks to ensure fair evaluations and gives employees clarity on which skill they need to prioritize to develop in their career.

Compensation and promotion management

Employees that feel financially healthy are 87% more likely to feel cared for at work. With this statistic in mind, prioritize a platform that helps set up fair promotion and salary processes so employees receive the recognition they deserve.

In-depth reporting

Well-designed employee engagement metrics dashboards compile data in a meaningful, digestible way, saving people ops leaders from having to sift through survey responses and interpret results with ad hoc processes. Additionally, solutions like Leapsome offer automated action plan recommendations to eliminate unnecessary trial and error.

Ease of use and customization

An engagement platform with a clunky, hard-to-navigate user interface (UI) can cause bottlenecks or errors and may even impede employees from completing surveys. Ensure to test the platform from both an admin and a user perspective before making a final decision.

Pricing and affordability

Tiered pricing models may seem straightforward, but they’re designed to prevent you from accessing specific tools until you upgrade to a more expensive plan. However, platforms like Leapsome allow you to customize your plan based on the features you need, which offers more value without exceeding your budget.

Engage and empower your talent with customizable surveys & development-focused reviews

Leapsome users love how you can adapt every aspect of the platform to fit their specific company needs.

Request a Demo

^1. Leapsome

Screenshot of the Leapsome survey module

Leapsome is a holistic people enablement software solution that’s even more comprehensive and intuitive than Culture Amp. Our platform interconnects engagement and employee feedback processes with goals and OKRs, learning and development, and compensation frameworks to make work more meaningful for team members and help improve your current HR processes.

With seven modules for you to choose from, Leapsome is highly customizable, although these do work best when they’re used together. These include:

Reviews
Goals
Surveys
Learning
Compensation
Meetings
Instant Feedback

Designed for organizations of all sizes, Leapsome has everything people ops professionals and managers need to gather feedback, synthesize data, and take relevant action. With our platform, you can do the following:

Build surveys with your own questions or choose from our best-practice question library and templates and set up automatic engagement surveys for every phase of the employee lifecycle.
Conduct regular pulse surveys to gauge staff satisfaction and sentiment.
Discuss and brainstorm engagement initiatives in structured team meetings and 1:1s.
Use survey action plan recommendations to create goal trees and OKRs for different teams and departments.
Establish OKR processes and align the whole company by setting up interconnected individual, team, and company goals.
Exchange instant feedback at any time.
Organize performance reviews to have open-ended discussions about how team members are feeling and progressing at work.
Build competency frameworks with customizable skills, levels, and titles for each department or team.
Leverage promotion and compensation management features to set up fair promotion processes based on employee input.
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Notable features
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Engagement and pulse surveys
Personalized learning paths
Competency frameworks to provide structured employee development paths
Trackable, flexible goal and OKR-setting features with integrated comments and feedback for optimal collaboration
Goals module syncs with 1:1 meetings and performance reviews
Questionnaire templates and action-driven surveys
Powerful data and analytics
Instant feedback and praise features to give meaningful appreciation to employees
Integrated compensation and promotion management tools to incentivize and motivate team members

Pros

Connects performance to goal-management and engagement data
All-in-one solution for people management and enablement processes
Award-winning customer service that replies within 12 hours
Available in 13 languages
Scalable and customizable
Easy-to-navigate user interface (UI)
GDPR compliant and ISO-27001 certified

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cons

Ongoing improvement can lead to occasional bugs
No mobile app yet
Variety of features can present a bit of a learning curve

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Trusted By:

“With Leapsome, we’ve seen some amazing improvements. The initiatives we identified from the survey results decreased our turnover by 12,2%, increased our survey participation rate to 82%, and it made people more productive and excited to come to the office.

Listening and transparency is a part of our culture, and Leapsome is a tool that gives our people a voice. The results are visible to the team members, so they can openly discuss with their managers during their retros.”

Natasa Kovacevic

People and Culture Manager

Read case study

^2. Betterworks

Betterworks performance management software helps organizations dig into company-wide and individual engagement data with surveys and turn these results into action with goals and OKRs. Additionally, the Conversations feature leverages goals and performance review information to make regular assessments more objective.

One of Betterworks’ most user-friendly tools is the Performance Snapshot sidebar that appears during check-ins. It allows managers to see how each employee is performing in terms of their current objectives and previous feedback without having to switch between dashboards during review discussions.
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Notable features
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Goals and OKR management
Customizable meeting agenda templates
Employee engagement surveys
Automations for scheduling staff feedback
Recognition and praise features
Templates for performance reviews and check-ins
Analytics and reporting dashboards

Pros

Provides helpful tutorials for setting up OKRs
Attentive support team
User-friendly UI

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cons

Users sometimes feel they have more features than they need
Difficult to integrate with third-party tools

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^3.CultureMonkey

CultureMonkey is an ideal option for organizations that are looking to make surveys a more integral component of their internal retention strategies. The lifecycle surveys allow people ops leaders to customize and schedule questionnaires to be sent out at various stages of the employee journey, including the following:

Onboarding
Adaptation
Productivity
Comfort
Growth
Burnout and wellness
Separation
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Notable features
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Employee engagement surveys
Pulse surveys
Anonymous feedback
eNPS surveys
Employee lifecycle surveys

Pros

Helps you capture engagement data at every stage of the employee lifecycle
Advanced, customizable analytics dashboards
Responsive support team

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cons

Lacks tools for performance reviews, goals and OKRs, and 1:1 meetings
Very few integrations

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^4. Engagedly

Engagedly is a people strategy platform that provides tools to manage and track performance, facilitate development, and engage team members. Like Culture Amp, it offers features for goal tracking and engagement surveys, but it also has a learning module for course creation.

One of Engagedly’s standout features is its E10 Employee Engagement Survey, which is a science-backed questionnaire that was developed by organizational psychologist Dr. Edie Goldberg. It’s designed to highlight perception gaps and yield detailed analytics, even across distributed organizations.

Notable features
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Performance management system
Goals and OKRs
Engagement surveys
360-degree and multi-rater reviews
Built-in LMS (learning management system)
Recognition and rewards

Pros

A comprehensive solution
Highly customizable performance management features
Intuitive UI

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cons

Performance review process could be more streamlined and automated
Some features are difficult to find
Lacks compensation and promotion management tools

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^5.Glint (now Microsoft Viva Goals)

Glint is a straightforward engagement survey and feedback software solution. It was acquired by LinkedIn in 2018 and was then moved into the Viva Suite by Microsoft.

Glint allows organizations to collect employee input at every level via engagement surveys, pulse surveys, and continuous feedback channels. The platform may not be as versatile as other options on this list, but it might still be worth checking out if you're starting to build out engagement and performance processes.
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Notable features
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Engagement and pulse surveys
360-degree and 180-degree feedback features
Goals dashboards
Feedback and recognition tools
Integrates with Microsoft Viva for deeper engagement insights
Analytics dashboards

Pros

A wide variety of in-depth insights
Company commitment to DEI
Layers of security and thorough survey data confidentiality

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cons

360-degree anonymous feedback can be hard to capture for small organizations
No built-in competency frameworks or performance reviews

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^6. Limeade Listening (formerly TINYpulse)

The enterprise-level wellbeing software solution Limeade Listening recently acquired TINYpulse. That means TINYpulse Engage has now become Limeade Listening, which currently offers engagement surveys, employee recognition tools, 360 assessment features, and 1:1 meetings.

Limeade Listening users can also access the platform’s other module, Limeade Wellbeing, which makes employee benefits and rewards more accessible and personalized for teams of all sizes.
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Notable features
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Engagement surveys and templates
Employee recognition software
1:1 meetings
Reporting and analytics

Pros

Mobile app
Great for connecting large, dispersed global teams
Easy to use and supports in creating a positive work environment

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cons

Recent acquisition by Limeade, so implementation may be confusing
Certain users report that survey questions occasionally feel irrelevant

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^7. Officevibe

Employee recognition is an essential part of boosting engagement and reducing turnover. Officevibe’s solution to this problem is its new Good Vibes tool, which allows team members to send virtual cards to each other with encouraging messages based on specific soft skills and company values.

Because everyone can view Good Vibes notes, it’s easy for colleagues to celebrate each others’ successes publicly. Plus, platform administrators can access Good Vibes reporting, which shows the values and employees people are celebrating the most.

Notable features
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Custom employee surveys
Automated pulse surveys
Anonymous feedback and messaging
Goals and OKRs
One-on-one meetings
Peer recognition

Pros

Ease of use
Actionable engagement insights
Helps organizations become more attractive places to work

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cons

Goals and 1:1 meetings aren’t very customizable
Some templates are clunky to use

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^8. Qualtrics Employee Experience

Qualtrics Employee Experience could be an option for enterprise-level companies. It takes engagement data and turns it into actionable insights for HR professionals and leaders. Similar to CultureMonkey, the platform is designed for gathering findings at the most crucial moments of the employee lifecycle.

Unlike other solutions, however, Qualtrics’s XM Discover feature gathers and synthesizes team members’ feedback from external sources like social media platforms, review sites, and forums, in addition to integrating internal input from surveys and 360-degree feedback.
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Notable features
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Pulse surveys
360-degree feedback tools
The ability to gather employee feedback from external and internal channels
Reporting and analytics

Pros

Comprehensive 360-degree insights
Allows for streamlined feedback processes
Pre-built survey templates

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cons

Survey data not always accurate
Integrating with other platforms can be complicated

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^9.Quantum Workplace

Quantum Workplace unifies engagement and performance management tools in one platform and incorporates the analytics that people ops professionals need to make action planning simpler. One notable feature is Quantum Workplace’s data feed, which is particularly useful for large organizations that have to deal with a lot of engagement statistics and feedback.

Another element that makes Quantum Workplace user-friendly is its mobile app, which is helpful for remote teams and offers most of the same functionalities as the desktop version.
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Notable features
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Engagement, pulse, and lifecycle surveys
Analytics dashboard and data feed
Goals and OKRs
Continuous feedback tools
Performance management system
1:1 meeting tools and templates
Public peer-to-peer recognition dashboard
Mobile app

Pros

Useful mobile app alerts and reminders
Practical for smaller teams
User-friendly interface

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cons

No auto-save feature
Some users find the OKR tool doesn’t accurately follow the OKR methodology

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^10. SurveySparrow

While most of its product suite caters to customer experience (CX), SurveySparrow also integrates employee experience tools into its 360 Assessments module. This allows organizations to gather feedback from managers, peers, direct reports, and reviewees for every appraisal, providing a more holistic picture of each team member’s performance.

Overall, SurveySparrow’s offerings aren’t as broad as the other entries on this list, but it’s a solid option for companies that want to conduct more in-depth customer and employee experience research.
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Notable features
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360-degree employee assessments
Customer surveys
Reputation management tools
Research panel software

Pros

Supports a high number of languages
Simple survey setup process
Great UI and customer support team

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cons

Pricing for access to certain features is high
Customization requires a lot of technical knowledge

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^11. Workday (Peakon)

Widely known for its financial and human capital management products, Workday bought Peakon and rebranded it as Workday Peakon Employee Voice, an engagement platform with customizable surveys, feedback features, and analytics. This may be an advantage for organizations that are familiar with Workday and need a solution that’ll integrate easily with the tools they already use.

Another potential advantage to Workday Peakon Employee Voice is that it’s easy to see how your current engagement scores compare with other companies in your industry. This easily accessible data saves HR teams from having to research and compile their own benchmarking data.
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